I'm no Luddite but in this age of nanosecond gratification I still get a kick out of receiving packages via snail mail, especially when they contain something that helps me catch fish. This go-around it was a handful of the prettiest hand-tied feather jigs you'll ever lay eyes on, crafted by my friend Steve Smith of Severna Park. Think Mewshaw-style jigs with an awesome paint job.

Standing on the beach at Sandy Point State Park on Thursday, Julie Brown worked with swimmers to make sure their life jackets were on properly.
Make sure the jackets fit snugly, she said. If you can pull the jacket above your ears, it's too big. If you...

Brigette Marchand was a fixture at the Colonial Players theater group in Annapolis.
David Frantzen was a systems application developer from Pasadena.
It is unclear how the two met, or what happened to them Sunday during a ride aboard Frantzen's 18-foot...

As a powerful thunderstorm moved into the area Monday afternoon, a lone sailboat headed out of Mezick Ponds at Sandy Point State Park for a jaunt on the bay.
A ranger warned the man behind the wheel a storm was approaching, said Natural Resources...

Maryland Natural Resources Police are searching for a boat believed to be connected to the body of a woman pulled from the water near Brandon Shores Monday morning.
The body was reported by a crabber around 8 a.m. The body appears to be a woman who was...

Some people bungee jump. Others surf or snowboard.
For Colin Rees and Derek Thomas, nothing beats the thrill of bird-watching.
"It's a combination of wonder and fascination," said Rees, 73, of Annapolis.
He hopes more people will flock to the hobby - courtesy of a book he co-authored with Thomas.
"Birds of a Feather" was self-published in May. The bird-watching diary compares the sights, sounds and smells of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay with the Gower Peninsula in Wales, which is where Thomas resides....

Maryland Natural Resources Police say a body was recovered from the waters beneath the Weems Creek Bridge in Annapolis on Sunday.
At around 11 a.m., a caller reported seeing what they believed was a head above the water, said Natural Resources Police spokeswoman Candy Thomson.
Three Natural Resources Police units, along with Annapolis police and firefighters, responded to the scene and pulled the body from the water at around noon, Thomson said.
The body is being taken to the Office of the Chief...

ANNAPOLIS -- Maryland Natural Resources Police were still working Monday morning to identify a man whose body was recovered a day earlier under Annapolis' Weems Creek Bridge.
Around 11 a.m. Sunday, a person reported what appeared to be a head floating above the water. Annapolis police and firefighters responded and were able to retrieve the body from the water around noon.
The man was wearing black and blue striped swim trunks, a scuba mask and was holding a lit flashlight, NRP officials said.
He is...

Three people were rescued from the water after two boats collided under the U.S. Naval Academy Bridge in Annapolis on Friday night, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said.
The accident occurred around 9:45 p.m. as the city's annual July 4 fireworks display was ending.
The academy made the Intramural field available for landing so that patients could be airlifted to a hospital, academy spokesman Commander John Schofield said.
One person was flown to University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, while another...

EDGEWATER - Maryland Natural Resources Police found the body of a 26-year-old man in Almshouse Creek off the South River Saturday evening.
Eyewitnesses saw the swimmer go into the water and not come out shortly after 8:30, said Candy Thomson, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Police. He was not a strong swimmer, friends told police.
After a search, police posted on Twitter that the body had been recovered about 9:45 p.m.
The Anne Arundel Fire Department made the recovery and the Natural...

Remove the sunken boat or spend six months in jail, the judge ordered.
The 26-foot cabin cruiser sank more than a year ago in an Annapolis creek. David Leon Collins, of Edgewater, its owner, was sentenced to jail for six months or until he offers a plan to pay for its removal.
Last year, the state paid for nine boats to be pulled from Anne Arundel County creeks and rivers, said Matt Negley, coordinator of the Abandoned Boat and Debris Program for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
The...

The already low crab and oyster population could be hurt by last week's record rainfall, as a large algae bloom nourished by a flood of stormwater pollution sucks oxygen from the Chesapeake Bay.
Scientists with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation said they won't know the extent of the damage until later this year, but said it's unlikely to cause a reoccurrence of the massive fish kill in Glen Burnie creeks that followed a massive sewer spill two years ago.
The algae bloom is the most pronounced in the...